1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the field of airline travel and, more particularly, to an air travel flight scheduling system best accessed using a distributed computer network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Airlines evolved historically in a pattern reflecting pursuit of the largest identifiable market areas, i.e., the largest population centers from which the greatest number of potential air-travelers might be drawn. This resulted in creation of an airline system containing major xe2x80x9chubsxe2x80x9d at major cities. In the process, airlines developed a similar form to that of the railroad industry where major rail heads and ports were interconnected by surface rail lines. Population concentrations had developed along routes where rail service became available. Rail lines attracted people and people attracted rail services.
Nevertheless, unlike railroads, aircraft are not confined to a road bed in choosing routes. They can fly a straight line from anywhere to anyplace. The economics of operating aircraft are highly sensitive to economy of scale. The larger the aircraft, the more economical its cost per passenger mile delivered. That results from a combination of both fuel economy and flight personnel required per passenger. However, to achieve that economy, these larger aircraft must fly with most of those seats occupied.
Flights between major hub airports offer greatest access to the largest pools of potential airline passengers. The greatest competitive pressures between airlines focus on obtaining rights to serve major hub locations.
While early evolution of these hub locations largely followed the locations of urban concentrations formed around rail heads and harbors, over decades a substantial portion of the population has become more widely dispersed as a result of the availability of highway transportation. Tens of millions of people live in communities that are neither rail heads nor hub airport locations. To serve these smaller cities, a system of xe2x80x9cfeederxe2x80x9d airlines developed. The principal orientation of feeder airlines generally involve connection between smaller communities and one of the established hub airports; for connections to other hub airports, and from which additional connections from a second hub airport to smaller communities could be made via additional feeder airlines.
Underlying all this development was orientation toward getting the maximum number of people on the largest aircraft available, with sufficient scheduled flight frequencies to provide a choice of timetables for accomplishing a given flight and making needed connections in a reasonable waiting time.
Speed of travel is the dominant attraction. Jet aircraft fly at twice the speed of prop driven aircraft. Arrival of the jet engine signaled the end to further development of larger prop driven aircraft. Most of that occurred before the advent of OPEC. Fuel efficiency was not as significant as speed, or labor. Since OPEC, fuel efficiency has also become a dominant concern.
Unfortunately, jet aircraft are only fuel efficient flying at high altitude and high speeds. During take-offs, landing, and taxiing, jet engines are notorious fuel xe2x80x9cguzzlersxe2x80x9d. On shorter haul flights, much of their operation occurs climbing to altitude, descending, and taxiing on the groundxe2x80x94all at low altitudes and slower speeds. In high air traffic density areas such as hub airports, additional time is spent xe2x80x9cstacked upxe2x80x9d at slow speeds waiting for clearance to land, and waiting in long queues lined up on a taxiway for clearance to take off, with engines idling.
Passengers desiring to fly from anywhere in Georgia to anywhere in the rest of the country must fly to Atlanta first. Passengers desiring to fly from anywhere in Ohio, southern Illinois, or Indiana to practically anywhere else in the country must first fly to Chicago. In the entire north central states region, travelers must fly to Milwaukee to get anywhere else. In addition to those for whom both origin and destination is someplace other than the locus of a hub airport, even those whose origin or destination is a hub airport still encounter half the waste travel and transfer flight delay time of those who must face it at both ends of a trip. As a result, on many trips, passengers must travel substantially longer total airline distances than the actual xe2x80x9cline-of-flightxe2x80x9d distance from the point of origin to the destination intended by the traveler. For example, to fly from Columbus, Ga. to Savannah, one must fly to Atlanta, and change planes for a second flight to Savannah. Each of these two flights is about the same distance as a direct flight from Colombus to Savannah.
More recently, major airline traffic losses have resulted from the number of passengers now taking advantage of short haul travel offered between smaller cities at lower fares, and at lower operating costs to airlines furnishing these services, using smaller aircraft. These smaller aircraft operators, often carrying 20-30 passengers, have already become large airlines themselves. They are still operating scheduled point-to-point travel services.
A survey of passengers arriving at hub airports would probably indicate that use of hub airports, as transfer points rather than trip destinations, is responsible for much of the air traffic congestion at hub airports. Air traffic congestion directly contributes to fuel wastage, both from time spent in holding patterns in the air while landing traffic clears, to time spent holding in long lines on the ground, with engines idling, awaiting take-off clearance.
For many passengers, itineraries require flying much farther than the airline mileage represented by xe2x80x9cairline distancexe2x80x9d from point of origin to intended destination. That additional mileage, even at jet transport speeds, is the equivalent or greater than a direct flight at slower speeds in terms of total flying time required. When waiting time at transfer points is added to flying time, average travel time in transit becomes substantially longer.
During Congressional hearings considering the launching of an American supersonic transport development program (SST) detailed analyses of what actually happens on a proposed trans-Atlantic flight trip were evaluated. A typical travel plan in those scenarios started with departure from home or hotel in New York City, a cab ride to Kennedy, check-in time prior to flight time, flight time from New York to Heathrow, customs clearance time in England, cab ride from Heathrow to London hotel or similar in-town destination, plus time spent for meals.
At the time of these hearings, the total elapsed number of hours from the starting point of origin in the first city to the ultimate destination in the second city, plus meal times for the number of meals normally eaten during that interval (whether served aboard the aircraft or eaten on the ground at either end of the trip) indicated that the time saved by use of SST aircraft was scarcely worth the cost and additional environmental problems incumbent to the launch of the program.
Congress did not approve the project. Lack of financial success of the subsequent British/French Concorde development bore out the accuracy of the earlier studies presented to the American Congress.
Obviously, much more is involved in most travel planning time allowances than the actual flying speed of the aircraft suggests.
A rather trivial approach to the concept of matching traveler need to flight options has been instituted by an effort to book luxury corporate jets as luxury travel charters, to allay part of the cost of ownership of luxury aircraft by making use of them when not in service by their owners. Its objective is substantially that of encouraging the purchase of such aircraft by those for whom their personal or corporate travel needs might not justify such ownership. Ownership shares are also being offered in expensive aircraft for those with no need for full time access to the use of such luxury accommodations.
Another approach, offering charter services via the Internet, proposed the use of a six-passenger aircraft in response to a random request for a flight from Key West to Gainesville, Florida for three persons. The price was $3,948. Flying time was one hour, thirty-four minutes. The same trip, offered by a discount booking service via regular airline services, proposed a flight from Key West to Tampa (flight time 1 hour fifteen minutes) followed by a connecting flight from Tampa to Gainesville (additional flying time forty minutes, with only a thirty minute layover to make the connection). Total trip time became two hours twenty-five minutes, for a total price of $754.50. Note that the charter aircraft offered was larger and faster than the trip required. (In response to a request for a charter for three passengers, the most appropriate aircraft selected by the charter booking service was a six-passenger, 225 mph aircraft for a 305 mile trip.) The 305 mile point-to-point distance bore no relationship to the suggested charter price in terms of aircraft operating cost, and nothing suggests where the aircraft was actually based (which might have affected the operating cost for the actual trip anticipated). The xe2x80x9cmind-setxe2x80x9d of the charter offering image was appeal to the luxury seeker.
A charter broker listing is also offered. This lists brokers world wide who offer to book charters via charter operators, generally on an area-by-area basis. There is obviously no connection between the charter brokers and the operators whose fleets are on call in response to a request from the broker. Many offer to book charters world-wide.
Clearly, none of these are oriented toward enveloping within their service all owners and operators of smaller aircraft or charter services. Nor is there any suggestion of the charter service operators having any association with either the booking agencies or the manufacturers of the aircraft. The new system of the present invention moves personal aviation out of the realm of the xe2x80x9crich man""s toyxe2x80x9d that originally identified introduction of the ubiquitous automobile into everyday life.
The distributed computer network air travel scheduling system and method of the present invention represents an entirely new concept of airline flight scheduling that takes full advantage of networked high speed computerized methods of planning, booking, routing, and scheduling of aircraft, of various sizes and performance characteristics, to offer both improved fuel economy and travel times through the elimination of non-productive airline passenger mileage and non-flying travel time.
The advent of the xe2x80x9cinformation agexe2x80x9d offers a new opportunity to gather and process information at blinding speeds using current computer technology. The present invention applies that technology to the problem of scheduling air transport in response to user demand as such demand arises.
In view of the foregoing, one object of the present invention is to overcome the difficulties of and inconveniences associated with air travel between non-hub cities by scheduling non-scheduled flights, arranged on-demand and point-to-point.
It is another object of the invention to organize Fixed Base Operators so as to better utilize their aircraft by making such aircraft available to air travelers seeking more direct flight paths from their point of origin to their destination.
A further object of the invention is to provide a less expensive alternative to traditional commercial airline travel for shorter haul flights as well as for travel between cities for which a direct traditional airline flight is unavailable.
A still further object of the invention is to provide flight scheduling in which the airline mileage closely approximates the actual line-of-flight distance from a point of origin to a destination.
Another object of the invention is to provide consumers with a form of air travel offering greater flexibility in scheduling and routing.
An additional object of the invention is the elimination of much of the duplication in the services offered by airlines competing for the same routes for the same reasons, and hence elimination of marginally booked flights.
A further object of the invention is the reduction of non-productive flight congestion at hub airports, with concurrent reduction in air traffic control complexity, as well as elimination of fuel wastage associated with prolonged holding pattern and take-off clearance delays that often result from unnecessary airport traffic congestion.
A still further object of the invention is the ability to employ the most fuel efficient type of aircraft able to supply a trip requirement in the same, or equivalent, travel time.
In accordance with this and other objects, the present invention is directed to a system and method for scheduling non-scheduled flights using a distributed computer network such as the Internet. Fixed Base Operators (FBO""s), through subscription to a directory service or similar listing available over the distributed computer network, make their aircraft available to air travelers seeking more direct flight paths and less structured travel between cities which are not primary commercial airline xe2x80x9chubxe2x80x9d cities.
Using the method of the present invention, a traveler schedules an individualized flight from a given departure site to a given destination according to personal need. The size of the aircraft to be used to complete the flight is selected from a fleet of various sizes on the basis of the number of passengers booking the flight. If extra space is available, additional passengers are drawn from the public at large in order to best utilize the fixed overhead necessary to complete the flight.
The benefits of the present invention include better use of under-utilized aircraft assets, a closer correlation between aircraft size and number of passengers on many flights, and the elimination of non-productive airline passenger mileage as well as non-flying travel time for certain categories of air travelers.